He was beside her in the driver’s seat, and she heard the click of the seat belt, and she wanted to laugh. Such a careful
man, who kills silently and always wears a seat belt. He leaned over and fastened hers, and the touch of his hands made her flinch as the knife hadn’t, but she stilled herself, keeping her eyes closed, hunting for that oblivion she so desperately needed.
He was driving very, very fast on the dark, moonless roads, running for their lives, and yet he reached over and turned on the radio. It was a hit song from a few years back—she has revolver eyes, she kills with her glance, she shoots. Shooting, killing, guns.
The oblivion held off. She turned to look at him. “You killed a man tonight,” she said.
He didn’t even spare her a glance. “I killed two men tonight. You didn’t see me cut the throat of one of the guards. I promise I didn’t hurt any of the dogs, though.”
She stared at him in horror. “How can you joke about it?”
“It was a joke that you didn’t want me to kill the dogs? It would have made things simpler if I had, but I decided to defer to your tender sensibilities.” He took the corner with the speed and skill of a race-car driver, only giving her a quarter of his attention.
She didn’t know which was worse: a man like Hakim who killed with pleasure, or a man like Bastien who felt nothing at all.
“Go to sleep, ma petite,” he said. “We’ve a long drive ahead of us, and you’ve already had a busy night. I’ll wake you when I stop for food.”
“I don’t ever want to eat again,” she said in a faint voice, shuddering. She could smell the blood, and something else basic and foul.
“Suit yourself. American girls are too fat anyway.”
She couldn’t even summon a trace of outrage. If she didn’t know better she’d think he’d said it for the simple purpose of bringing her out of her dazed, deadened state, but it seemed unlikely he’d care. She ought to ask him where he was taking her, but she couldn’t summon the energy or the curiosity. He’d take her wherever he wanted, do whatever he wanted. She could only hope that if he decided to put his hands on her again it would be to kill her. She would rather be dead than have sex with this cold-blooded monster.
“Go to sleep,” he said again, in a gentler voice, even though the very notion of gentleness was absurd. But the song on the radio was soft and soothing as he sang of love and killing. C’est foutu. Everything’s fucked, he sang, and she could only agree, as she closed her eyes and let the darkness come.
Bastien glanced over at her once he was certain she’d drifted off. She was a mess—her arms were crisscrossed with shallow cuts and burns, her face was pale, tear-stained, her makeup giving her raccoon eyes. She looked very fragile, but he knew she was tougher than she seemed. She was still alive, a miracle in itself. She’d somehow been able to withstand Hakim long enough.
Hakim had a rhythm to his work—he’d been a man of method. He told them not to scream, and then worked on them until they did, like a lover trying to bring a reluctant woman to orgasm. Once they started to scream he moved faster, but Chloe had managed to keep silent. She had blood on her mouth and her lips were swollen from biting down to keep the screams at bay. Or maybe it was from his own mouth on hers. He’d certainly been no tender lover.
He’d found out what he needed to know, and that had been what mattered. And then he’d gone and screwed everything up by sticking his nose where it didn’t belong, interfering with Hakim’s fun and games instead of accepting that every war had its casualties.
Maybe he was just tired of all the collateral damage. Maybe he wanted to save one life instead of taking it. Maybe he was so burned out that he was courting death, screwing up important assignments on a whim.
She looked pretty messed-up for a whim. He needed to get them somewhere safe, where he could clean the wounds on her soft, pale skin, where he could figure out what the hell he was going to do now, both with her and with himself.
She was easy enough. He’d patch her up, calm her down and put her on the next plane back to the United States. She must weigh about one hundred and twenty-five pounds—it would be easy enough to give her just enough drugs to make her calm and pliant but still able to get herself on and off a plane.
It wouldn’t be before tonight. First he had to get to one of his safe houses, clean her up and reassess the situation. Maybe the Committee would decide to terminate him after such a royal cock-up. He’d outlived his usefulness, and he was starting to act on impulse, which made him a liability. His employers weren’t the kind who gave second chances.
Hakim was expendable, but it had happened much too soon. And here he was, on the run, abandoning his mission before the main target had even showed up. Thomason would be livid. It didn’t matter. He was ready for this to be over. He no longer cared about anything or anyone, even his own worthless hide. As soon as he made sure Chloe was safe they could come and get him.
She was stronger, more resilient than he could have hoped. By the time the sun had risen across the French countryside her color had improved, and she slept more peacefully. He’d driven north, heading toward Normandy, and then circled back, coming toward Paris from the northwest rather than the south. It wasn’t much to throw his pursuers off, but he was hoping it would take a number of hours before someone found Hakim’s body and figured out who was missing.
He considered dumping the car, stealing a new one to cover his tracks a little better, but for some reason he was loath to disturb Chloe when she was sleeping so soundly. He had plenty of places to hide the car in the city—he just had to count on his luck holding for the next few hours. Long enough to get her safely on a plane.
He stopped in a small town just outside the city, leaving the car running while he went into a small store to get a few necessities. He lucked out—they had shoes in what he guessed was her size, they had Diet Coke and premade sandwiches that would taste like a cardboard baguette, but by then he wasn’t picky. Neither of them could afford to go without food, though he expected he’d have to hold her down and force her to eat. And while that vision was undeniably erotic in a pleasantly kinky way, he didn’t have time for it.
The coffee was the way he liked it—strong and sweet—and he drove one-handed through the morning streets of Paris, dodging the kamikaze traffic with expert ease, weaving in and out of the trucks and taxis like someone on a motorcycle, even taking a bit of the sidewalk at one point. Driving so fast no one would have time to notice anything but a blur. The usual Paris gridlock was nothing to him, and by the time he made it safely into the underground garage at the western-style hotel he was reasonably sure no one had followed him. They were safe for the next few hours.
It was an American hotel, bland and expensive and unremarkable, and he kept one of their better rooms, using it for the occasional cover, the occasional downtime. As far as he knew, no one was aware of its existence, but he knew that wouldn’t last long. As soon as they started looking for him they’d be able to track the extended room rental, and then he’d be shit out of luck.
But that much would take hours, and he was willing to take the chance. Chloe needed bandaging, neatening up, something to eat and as close to brainwashing as he could manage without the right sort of drugs. He hadn’t decided exactly what he was going to tell her. He wasn’t going to be able to convince her it was all a dream, not with those marks on her arms and her hair hanging around her face in odd lengths. Her face was pale, and there was a bruise beneath her eye that would benefit from ice.
He pulled into his allotted parking spot and turned off the car. That level of the garage was deserted at that hour—too early for the idle rich to move about, too late for the working stiffs. He could get her up to his room with the minimum of witnesses.
She had opened her eyes, staring at him dazedly. She’d pulled her shirt around her, but she hadn’t fastened it. Maybe it hurt too much to move her arms. He reached toward her, to fasten the buttons, but she flinched away, as if he were about to hit her.
“I was going to button your shirt,” he said. “You can’t walk through a hotel looking like that, not when we’re trying not to